Trust Hongkongers to be the first ones in—wherever.

The Peninsula London officially opened its doors at 8.08 am on 12 September, and the first guest to check in was an aficionado of the brand who had just flown in from Hong Kong International Airport. He was welcomed by Peter Borer, COO of the Peninsula parent, Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels. The honoured guest found himself in a Peter Marino-designed suite looking directly down at the red double-decker buses circling Hyde Park Corner (scarlet-coated guardsmen would ride by at 11 am to do duty at Buckingham Palace, five minutes away). Turn 180 degrees and Mr Hong Kong would revel in arguably the world’s most beautiful city-hotel bathroom, a Hollywood vision of off-white onyx, gold fronted units, and a soaking tub that, by a simple push of a button, turns into a soft-music spa sensation. The Peninsula London’s MD is one-time retailer Sonja Vodusek, an Aussie who relocated to London from Tokyo.

Talking of Down Under, would-be New Zealand concert violinist Sir Michael Hill diverted to fine jewellery—there are over 200 eponymous stores in Australia, plus a few in Canada. He continues to fiddle as one of his hobbies, which include superyachts, golf, and the arts. The Hill family lives in Arrowtown, an historic gold mining town in Otago, 19.5 kilometres east of Queenstown in New Zealand’s South Island. What started out as a one-hole putting practice quickly evolved to a championship 18-holer, said to be the most exclusive in the land. The Hills Golf Course is memorable for its clubhouse, designed by Auckland-based architect Andrew Patterson. It’s partly subterranean. Above ground, the actual 18-hole course, by Kiwi John Darby, is sometimes compared to a sculpture park. Some of the pieces dotted around are by Sir Michael’s son, Mark Hill—notably, a three-metre rusted-look Walking Woman dominating a bridge at the fourth hole. There are also works by Beijing sculptor Liu Ruowang who personally decided where 110 larger-than-life wolf sculptures should go. The Hills Golf Course is a private members club, but it welcomes visitors, and there’s a six-room ensuite and fully staffed luxury lodge—buyouts only.

Sometimes, it’s more satisfying to admire art than buy it. In 2015, Shanghai-based Liu Yiqian, chairman of Sunline Group, and his wife, Wang Wei, paid HK$335 million for an Amedeo Modigliani portrait of teenager Paulette Jourdain, also known as Paulene. Liu and his wife, whom he met in an earlier existence when he was an on-call cab driver, bought the painting from the personal collection of one-time Sotheby’s owner Al Taubman. Thanks to canny stocks and shares activities, the self-taught Liu amassed a considerable fortune, but sadly, his intuition did not transfer to the art world. On 5 October this year, the Jourdain portrait was sold by Sotheby’s Hong Kong for a mere HK$275 million.

Nikko, two hours north of Tokyo, is renowned for its natural beauty, and historic temples of the calibre of Tosho-gu shrine, a 17th-century memorial to Tokugawa Ieyasu that defies belief in how much real gold leaf can be used on one wood building. At the serene Ritz-Carlton, Nikko, the 277-square-metre Ritz-Carlton Suite, in palest cream, has full-window views over sacred Mount Nantai and Lake Chozenji. Fly-fishing and hiking are orders of the day, together with tasting Hibiki whisky with natural ice, perhaps with a selection of Nikko’s justly renowned designer strawberries. Also, in the past, the area was a summer retreat from Tokyo’s pre-aircon heat. Today, take afternoon tea in the graceful mansion that used to be the British ambassador’s summer residence.